ABSTRACT
The Breakthrough Conversations approach is designed to facilitate people to deepen their awareness, to gain insights, to strengthen their connection to others and to find creative solutions to challenges. In this approach, conversations are viewed as a powerful place to focus our attention, both for understanding the challenges clients face and for accelerating personal and interpersonal development. Distinguishing three types of conversation, RED/reactive, AMBER/habitual, and GREEN/reflective, Breakthrough Conversations correspond to GREEN conversations, whereas less skilful conversations correspond to RED or ineffective AMBER conversations. By supporting clients to recognise these different states in themselves and others, we enable them to enhance their self-awareness and their capacity to engage in more consciously skilful conversations. A further classification differentiates the targets for Breakthrough Conversations in terms of four purposes: Be Social, Transact, Connect, and Collaborate. There is potential for breakthrough in each of these domains, but the more significant developmental shifts occur as a result of the enhanced emotional awareness associated with the Connect and Collaborate domains.
This approach originates from a pluralistic integration of developmental ideas from psychotherapy, coaching, neuroscience and mindfulness, and has been honed through the pragmatic experience of one-to-one, paired, team and group sessions with managers and coaches. Principles intrinsic to this approach include a focus on conversations as the agent and target of change, increasing client capacity for self-regulation, body-awareness as a basis for self-awareness, and the benefits of working with individuals and pairs. The skills required to apply this approach correspond to the capabilities we are seeking to develop in clients, and can be represented as a ladder of five accumulating capabilities: motivation, self-regulation, self-disclosure, agility and playfulness.
